One of the main problems that you face when preparing for a science fair is procrastination. There is a lot of effort that goes into making a great science project. You always want to do a great science project, but time is also short.  It tends to be so much simpler to do it a bit later when you have some time on your hands.

The trouble is that the time eventually runs out and you have less than a week to do the project. So now you panic and start wondering what to do. You see your friends putting the finishing touches to their projects and the funny sensation in the bottom of your tummy intensifies. What are you going to do? For starters you will stop panicking.

Now you will decide on which branch of science you need to make your project in. Just jot down all easy science projects that come into your mind on a note pad. Stop when you have twenty ideas. Now filter out the ones which need no specialized material. Keep the ones that can be done with stuff from around the house on the list and cross out the rest.

Collect all the material that you will need in one room in a specific area. Think ahead of all the things that you will need and get it all here.  Now that you have all the material organized get to work on the science project. Make the model, the display board and anything else that you need. Now

Hi there! It’s been a few months since my last post, so I wanted to be sure to get you great information now that I’m back in the swing of things!  One of the best ways you can encourage your child to do their own work is to provide them with the right tools and information that are interesting to them.  So if your kid is nuts about lasers and light but couldn’t care less about plants (and you’re a botanist!), doing a science fair project about photosynthesis probably isn’t going to work out so well.

However, if you toss a handful of spinach leaves in the blender along with a bit of water and whirl away… and then hit the plant juice with a UV (black) light, you’ll find that it glows red. Not only is this a great start to a science fair project, it will also kick-start their brain in a way that engages them in the project and leaves you on the sidelines as ‘coach’ (which is where you want to be anyway – this is THEIR work, not yours!)

There are tons of great ideas on this website about how to do interesting science just by using regular household materials (did you find the picture of the laser light show build inside tupperware on this site yet?)  And we’re here to help you through it. One of the things you want to do before you leave this site is download the ‘Free Stuff’ and see what you can find inside.

For older kids, the Free Guide isn’t going to be enough – you’ll actually need to check out our science fair project kits, especially the Linear Accelerator and the R.O.V. project.  The physics and math modeling behind the Linear Accelerator is enough to make a college student cry, so don’t go overboard on the the mathematics.  Just have fun and enjoy the process.

I’ll write more cool ideas soon, including how to make a homemade telescope and microscope.  Happy experimenting!

~Aurora

Any vehicle that takes a ride down bumpy terrain is likely to test the efficacy of its shock absorbers. Guess what new science experiments at MIT under Zack Anderson have found a way to make a bumpy ride useful. The energy released by the shock absorbers has so far just been in the form of heat. Now they have come up with a way to make the energy useful by converting it into electrical energy.

The science project hopes to power electrical devices inside the car or the truck using this electrical energy that the modified shock absorbers produce. The trucks and military vehicles which routinely travel over rough surfaces are likely to be prime candidates for this trial product. If it works the fuel used to power electronics in the car will be reduced drastically.

The new product developed is called GenShock. It is supposed to convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy without adversely affecting the ride in any way. The trouble is that GenShock is currently not much use on smooth roads and highways. It is the bumpy ride that generates the electrical energy.

Currently some Israeli and British experts are trying to find a solution to this problem. They are working on an experiment involving pressure sensitive crystals. While they continue to carry out their research perhaps you could come up with a science fair project using similar science principles. Who knows you might be the one to solve the problem of the non bumpy ride generating more electrical energy.

If you think that science fair projects can only be done in laboratories think again. Some of the most unconventional projects can be possible at locations such as traffic lights. In fact German zoologist Josef Reichholf, even managed to get a complete book out of this. It all began when he saw that crows would deliberately drop nuts at the traffic lights.

His curiosity had him examine the situation closer. That’s when he realized just how ingenious these crows were. The vehicles would pass over the nuts and crack them open. After the lights turned red again, the crows would swoop down and pick up the food. The cars were being used as a nut cracking service.

There have been other instances of the intelligence of crows and their relatives. This group of birds is called the corvids. The Jackdaw is a prime example. If you want the jackdaw to eat, just point a finger in the direction of the food and it will find it. Owners of Jackdaws have long maintained that these intelligent creatures are able to use human behavior to their advantage.

Research carried out by  a biologist Auguste von Bayern, even suggests that corvids may be able to read the message in human eyes  even better than a chimpanzee. So far chimpanzees were considered the best at deciphering what the human being was trying to communicate. However this new science experiment at Oxford University sure changes that view.  Here are a few tips on getting an interesting science fair project on the way.

Science is almost always associated with electricity. In fact most scientific discoveries are based on science projects using electricity. The trouble is that not everyone regards electricity as the miracle it is any more. We have got so used to turning on a switch and flooding a room with light that the magic has gone out of the experience.

Maybe we have taken electricity so much for granted because we have grown up with it. Secure in the knowledge that we have to but hit the switch and lights will follow. The fact that a majority of the world’s population still does not have electricity in their homes is of little importance to us.

That’s why the Earth Hour project is important. Over 80 countries on all the continents in the world participated in the last Earth Hour event. At an appointed time every one switches off all the lights in their homes. It is an awareness drive for Global Warming being caused by human activities. So make sure that you do your part for the Earth next time we celebrate Earth Hour.

On the other hand science projects like this one on light intensity here will never be possible with out electricity. So make sure that you try it out when you can use electricity. Just make sure that you use it without wasting it. As with all man made resources even this one is non recyclable.

Any number of kids want to fly. In fact many adults too have this secret fantasy.  All of us are fascinated by birds that effortlessly flap their wings and take off into the sky.The blue open spaces seem to symbolize freedom to us. There is something very liberating to imagine yourself soaring through the air.

Perhaps that’s why the sport of paragliding or para sailing are so popular. Although what goes up, must come down. In some cases it can be aided by parachutes. In other cases it will crash down to the Earth. Many science experiments go into designing and manufacturing good parachutes. This is an essential safety equipment for any one who is going to fly in a plane or even jump out of one.

Here’s a good science fair project idea based on the study of parachutes. This will help you make a detailed study of parachutes made out of different materials and just how effective and fast they are. These are just guidelines and you are free to improvise as and when you feel the need.

You never know it could actually lead you to design the next best selling parachute. It is through small science projects like the ones that you do for your science fair projects that you can lay the foundation of your future career. And even if it does not work out into a job, you would still have had fun with the science experiments.

Thanks to global warming the ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic regions have been melting faster than ever before.  This is affecting the level of water present in the oceans.  Also the white surface of snow reflects the sunlight back to space, this helps keep earth cooler. While the dark ocean water surface absorbs more heat, making the Earth a warmer planet.

This in turn makes the ice melt faster. So you have low lying landmasses getting submerged. Countries like Bangladesh which are barely a few feet above sea level will see a sharp reduction in the area of land available to them. Sure you can build dams like the Dutch, but how long will the sea stay back? Is the sea going to rise and swallow us all up? No its not that bad, as yet.

Although it would be a good idea to learn how to swim. The water in the polar ice caps is going to be released slowly into the sea and one day we will not have snow any more. The Earth will be a hot and humid place and many of us may be living in boats and floating  to work in cannoes. Till that happens it may be a good idea to get comfortable with water.  Build your own miniature submarine and enjoy the dangers of the deep!

How lucky are you to be able to drink clean water each day of your life? Very lucky indeed. Do you know that even today many countries do not have safe drinking water available for their children to consume? That some places tap water is likely to give you diseases such as Malaria, Cholera, Typhoid or Dengue?And that’s if you are lucky to have a tap in your house as there are homes that get no running water supply at all.

In fact to illustrate just how much dirty water can affect you, recently Dirty Water Vending Machines were placed in Manhattan. You could for a dollar buy water that “contained” the germs of all these different diseases. This awareness campaign is being run by the UNICEF. The money collected goes to the UNICEF fund.

So make sure that you are not wasting all that lovely clean water that runs in your tap at home. Open the taps for just as long as needed and use the water judiciously. Remember that there is a child in the world who is not as lucky as you and has to walk ten miles to get a drink of water from the well near by.

Speaking of water, what about an experiment with another liquid that we all like, Soda Pop. This is a fun science experiment that can also be used as a science project. Have fun trying it out.

Recently NASA  revealed that India’s maiden lunar mission, Chandrayaan-I, had traced water molecules on the moon’s surface.  This caused all kinds of ripples of excitement all through the scientific community. What’s the source of this excitement? Why are all kinds of dignified grown ups acting like they are four and have been given a huge bar of candy?

The moon has always been considered a hostile environment for human beings like us. It was believed to be dry and arid thanks to having no atmosphere. It was considered impossible for life as we know it to survive on the moon. Even though it is our closest heavenly neighbor, humans could not believe that it would ever be possible to actually survive there for any length of time.

Now if water exists on the moon what possibilities does it open up for us on Earth? The water molecules can be split to create oxygen. Maybe we can have a science project involving getting the moon an atmosphere.  As land gets consumed by urban jungles, perhaps land on the moon could be brought under cultivation to grow food for us.  The possibilities are mind boggling. If all this talk about the moon makes you want to blast off into outer space, try out this science project idea on Rockets till you are grown up enough to get to the real deal .

Whether you know it or not there is a lot of science around you. Science projects have helped develop bare ideas into bone and flesh from many devices. Some think of science as a “Good servant but a bad master.” Yet no one can deny that the application of science over the years has led to technology that makes our lives very comfortable indeed. So where do you find science in your life? Just about everywhere.

I’m not talking about the elcetronic gadgets that you use each day. They are too obvious an example of scineca nd technology. No I’m talking about the mundane things that are lying around the house. Things that you would never even associate with science and technology.

There is science in the bed that you sleep on. The wood used to build your bed was probably cut using an electric saw. The nails and glue that hold the bed together in the structure that it is, were developed by exploiting the scientific properties of these materials. Imagine the amount of science involved in making that little nail out of iron. Iron that was probably extracted from a deep lying ore in the ground, then purified and finally shaped into that nail.

As you can see just about everything that you use has been brought to you by a number of scientific experiments. So its now your turn to welcome science into your life. Let it glow and then share the glow with all your friends.